The Adventures of Lana Inwards, Sorceress Supreme
by Ilione
Summary: Who are these people and what do they have to do with the Slayers? You'll have fun figuring it out!
1. A promising beginning

**_Disclaimer:_** The world and some of the characters mentioned in this story belong to people and companies other than me. Other characters and situations are so strongly based on the original series that they probably count as copyright violations too. I mean no harm by writing this story, so please don't hurt me. 

* * *

Let me introduce myself. I am the sorceress supreme and mistress of magic Lana Inwards. You haven't heard of me? Well, you will! I only ran away from h...I mean, started my adventures two weeks ago and I've already defeated monsters that would kill most mages! This is how it started. 

I was eating lunch in a nondescript little town and wondering how I was going to pay for dinner. You see, I didn't have much money with me. I'd planned to make money along the way using my magic skills but so far I hadn't found a single job. You'd think that people would be lining up for the reasonably priced assistance of a powerful sorceress like me, but no one would buy so much as a levitation spell. 

I was sitting there in the cafe trying to make my cup of soup (cheapest thing on the menu) last when the ceiling started to shake. The waitress ran to the window to see what was going on. My first thought was that it was an earthquake, but then I realized what it really was. 

"It's a dragon!" the waitress screamed. 

It was an opportunity. 

I gulped down the last spoonful of my soup (I don't believe in wasting food) and leapt to my feet. "Fear not!" I exclaimed. "The mighty sorceress Lana Inwards is here!" 

Maybe it was a little melodramatic, but it was my first real battle, okay? 

I dashed outside. I saw the dragon. I nearly turned and ran. 

It was big. I mean _really_ big. Big enough to crush houses just by stepping on them, which was exactly what it was doing. It was also breathing fire. It crushed another house and set fire to the one beside it as I watched. My guts turned to water. 

"No," I told myself firmly. "You are the great Lana Inwards, sorceress supreme and mistress of magic. The great Lana Inwards is not going to scream and run away like a little girl." 

I sprinted up the street towards the dragon. 

"Hey, dragon!" I yelled. "If you want to destroy this town you'll have to destroy me first. Fireball!" 

In hindsight, fireball was not the smartest spell to use. I mean, the thing was _breathing_ fire. I should have expected it to be heat resistant. Still, my fireball has been known to vaporize steel. It should have had _some_ effect on the dragon. Instead, it just washed harmlessly over the beast's scaly shoulder. 

The dragon turned its head to look at me and roared its defiance. Actually, the sound it made was more like a very loud rooster, but I can't say that the dragon _cawed_ its defiance. That would be completely undignified! 

The dragon swiped at me with a giant, clawed foot. I dodged and rolled out of the way. It lashed its tail, sending the remains of a building flying into the space where I had been, but I managed to teleport to the top of another building before the rubble reached me. I blessed my teacher under my breath. He had driven me into a paranoid, homicidal rage on more than one occasion, but thanks to him teleporting out of danger had become instinctive. 

The dragon looked around in confusion until it spotted me. It immolated the building under me with its fiery breath but again I managed to teleport away in time. I tried some of my more powerful spells, but they barely bruised the dragon. This was getting me nowhere. As I had expected from the beginning, I would have to use my most powerful spell. 

Let me tell you a little about this spell. It calls directly on the power of Ruby-Eye Shabranigdo, the most powerful force of destruction in this world. It was developed a thousand years ago by Lei Magnus, one of the greatest sorcerers ever to live. I had only cast it once before. My parents grounded me for a month even though they were never able to prove that I was responsible for the crater. 

I lured the dragon out of town by jumping or teleporting from rubble pile to ruin in front of it. I stung it with medium strength offensive spells in between jumps to make sure that it wouldn't ignore me. By the time we reached the edge of the town it was so mad that I thought it might save me the trouble of blowing it up by exploding from pure rage. 

Let me tell you, it's not easy dodging claws and flame breath and casting spells all at once! The dragon almost got me when a piece of charred timber crumbled under my feet. Then, a few seconds later, I teleported straight into the path of its flame, but luckily the dragon ran out of breath just then. No one but a highly trained hero like me could have survived for long against such a monster. Except for those few incidents, I had the situation completely under control. 

The only problem was that I'd need a bit more time for concentration in order to cast my big spell. I took a risk. I teleported back to the edge of town and hoped that the dragon wouldn't think to look behind it. 

"Darkness beyond twilight," I chanted, "Crimson beyond blood that flows, buried in the stream of time..." 

The dragon spotted me. It came running straight towards me, jaws gaping wide. 

"...I pledge myself to darkness." Magical winds whipped through my hair. "Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed by the power you and I possess..." 

I could see the flame forming in the dragon's mouth. I could almost feel its claws piercing my tender, little body. 

"DRAGON SLAVE!!!" 

My spell hit its flame. For a breathless moment, the two forces held each other at bay. Then my spell consumed the flames. The blood-colored beam of light shot forward until it hit the ground right under the dragon. It became a quickly-expanding dome of destruction that was nearly as big as the town by the time I blacked out. 

* * *

I woke up to a pair of gorgeous, jade green eyes and a friendly smile. Both belonged to the most beautiful man I had ever seen. Of course that's not saying too much considering that I come from a small town full of plain people, but this guy was amazing. Let's put it this way. I had never imagined that anyone, male or female, could be that beautiful. Besides those eyes, he had flawless white skin (currently somewhat suntanned, but pale underneath), a long, straight, perfect nose, a firm, shapely, perfect jaw, and lush blonde curls. He looked only a few years older than me, old enough to be considered an adult but young enough to still be smug about it. 

"Are you a ryuzoku?" I asked. My voice sounded harsh in my ears. 

He laughed in surprize. "Me? No, I'm just an ordinary priest." His laughter made his nose wrinkle and eyes scrunch up just as if he was not a divine beauty. 

Oh, maybe I should explain about ryuzoku. They are powerful beings who devote their lives to preserving life. They serve Flare-Dragon Cephied, the eternal nemesis of Ruby-Eye Shabranigdo. Shabranigdo's minions, by the way, are called mazoku. The main type of ryuzoku living today are golden dragons (which are completely different from black dragons like the one I fought). 

"Are you okay now?" the beautiful man was asking. 

I realized that I had been staring at him all this time. I quickly looked away, blushing. "What do you mean?" I asked. 

"You were pretty badly hurt. I healed you." 

I looked around. I was lying on the ground at the edge of a huge, smoking crater. To my embarrassment, my clothes were badly ripped and scorched and I was covered with dirt. 

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. I sat up. 

My healer was indeed wearing priest robes, or rather a priestly tunic and pants. Both were grey. The only ornamentation on them was a thick purple ribbon that stretched from his collar to below his belt with round green stones at the top and bottom. I'm no expert on priestly uniforms, but his looked pretty low rank. 

"Does it hurt anywhere?" he asked anxiously. 

I stretched experimentally. "No." I got to my feet. 

He scrambled up too and tried to steady me. "Careful, little girl. You could still be dizzy from blood loss." 

"Little girl!" I repeated indignantly, brushing his handsome hands off me. "I'm the great sorceress Lana Inwards! I am not a little girl." 

"How old are you then?" 

"Sixteen!" 

"Wow, you sure don't look it." 

"I'm a bit small for my age." 

"I'll say!" 

"Okay," I admitted, "I'm really only fourteen." Well, probably. "I'm still a great sorceress." 

"Fourteen? You're sure this time?" 

"Yes, of course I'm sure!" 

"You're still small for your age. I would have guessed that you were about twelve years old." 

I growled. This guy might be handsome and kind, but he sure was _rude_. 

"Um, that was a tactless thing to say, wasn't it? Sorry. You're a very cute kid, if that helps." 

I wasn't sure whether to smile and blush or hit him, so I did both. 

He sat up rubbing his jaw, "Hey, what was that for?" 

"The next time you meet a sorceress, be more polite." 

He opened his mouth to say something else but changed his mind and shut it again. He watched me with a wry smile and a thoughtful look in his disconcertingly warm, green eyes. I stared back. He would be a nice guy if he kept his mouth shut. 

Maybe I had overreacted. I'm a little bit sensitive about my looks. I am, as he so accurately pointed out, small for my age. My mother calls me a late bloomer. I'm sure I'll reach my growth spurt soon, but in the meantime I look like a twelve-year-old boy. The rest of my looks don't help my confidence either. I'm not ugly or anything but I'm not exactly beautiful either. "Cute" is a pretty good description. I have orange hair, which I sometimes love and sometimes hate. It makes it impossible for me to blend in with the crowd, if I wanted to do that, which I don't. Then there are my eyes. Everyone comments on my eyes. 

"Wow, you have really unusual eyes," Mr. Tactless commented. He braced himself in case I decided to hit him again. 

Instead, I just sighed. "Yeah, I know. Your eyes are an unusual color too. You should be used to it." 

"It's not that they're purple. I know someone else with purple eyes. It's that you have cat pupils." 

I considered hitting him again, but what he said was only the truth. It would be unfair to expect him not to comment on something like that. 

"Do the rest of your family have eyes like yours?" he asked. 

"I don't know. I'm adopted. Can we drop the subject of my looks?" 

"Adopted? Oh. Sorry. I...didn't mean to offend you. Um..." He searched for a safer topic. "I'm really impressed that you killed a dragon by yourself. There aren't many people who could do that." 

I grinned. "Yup. I told you that I'm great." 

"You should be more careful though. There might not be anyone around to heal you the next time." 

I scowled. "Um. Yeah, thanks for the healing. You do that a lot?" 

He swelled with pride. "Yes. I'm a traveling healer." 

"Is that a custom at your temple?" I asked, "Like journeyman status for craftsmen?" 

"No, no! It's just something I want to do." 

"That's really noble of you," I said, genuinely impressed. 

He shrugged. "I've always wanted to see the world." 

"Me too!" 

We smiled at each other. In that moment, I knew that I could like this guy. No one else had ever understood why I wanted to travel just for the sake of traveling. He might have a big mouth, but he was really a nice guy. And he sure was easy on the eyes. 

"You already know my name, but you haven't told me yours," I prompted. 

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Sorry. It's Eruk. Eruk Nels 

**_Disclaimer:_** The world and some of the characters mentioned in this story belong to people and companies other than me. Other characters and situations are so strongly based on the original series that they probably count as copyright violations too. I mean no harm by writing this story, so please don't hurt me. 

* * *

Let me introduce myself. I am the sorceress supreme and mistress of magic Lana Inwards. You haven't heard of me? Well, you will! I only ran away from h...I mean, started my adventures two weeks ago and I've already defeated monsters that would kill most mages! This is how it started. 

I was eating lunch in a nondescript little town and wondering how I was going to pay for dinner. You see, I didn't have much money with me. I'd planned to make money along the way using my magic skills but so far I hadn't found a single job. You'd think that people would be lining up for the reasonably priced assistance of a powerful sorceress like me, but no one would buy so much as a levitation spell. 

I was sitting there in the cafe trying to make my cup of soup (cheapest thing on the menu) last when the ceiling started to shake. The waitress ran to the window to see what was going on. My first thought was that it was an earthquake, but then I realized what it really was. 

"It's a dragon!" the waitress screamed. 

It was an opportunity. 

I gulped down the last spoonful of my soup (I don't believe in wasting food) and leapt to my feet. "Fear not!" I exclaimed. "The mighty sorceress Lana Inwards is here!" 

Maybe it was a little melodramatic, but it was my first real battle, okay? 

I dashed outside. I saw the dragon. I nearly turned and ran. 

It was big. I mean _really_ big. Big enough to crush houses just by stepping on them, which was exactly what it was doing. It was also breathing fire. It crushed another house and set fire to the one beside it as I watched. My guts turned to water. 

"No," I told myself firmly. "You are the great Lana Inwards, sorceress supreme and mistress of magic. The great Lana Inwards is not going to scream and run away like a little girl." 

I sprinted up the street towards the dragon. 

"Hey, dragon!" I yelled. "If you want to destroy this town you'll have to destroy me first. Fireball!" 

In hindsight, fireball was not the smartest spell to use. I mean, the thing was _breathing_ fire. I should have expected it to be heat resistant. Still, my fireball has been known to vaporize steel. It should have had _some_ effect on the dragon. Instead, it just washed harmlessly over the beast's scaly shoulder. 

The dragon turned its head to look at me and roared its defiance. Actually, the sound it made was more like a very loud rooster, but I can't say that the dragon _cawed_ its defiance. That would be completely undignified! 

The dragon swiped at me with a giant, clawed foot. I dodged and rolled out of the way. It lashed its tail, sending the remains of a building flying into the space where I had been, but I managed to teleport to the top of another building before the rubble reached me. I blessed my teacher under my breath. He had driven me into a paranoid, homicidal rage on more than one occasion, but thanks to him teleporting out of danger had become instinctive. 

The dragon looked around in confusion until it spotted me. It immolated the building under me with its fiery breath but again I managed to teleport away in time. I tried some of my more powerful spells, but they barely bruised the dragon. This was getting me nowhere. As I had expected from the beginning, I would have to use my most powerful spell. 

Let me tell you a little about this spell. It calls directly on the power of Ruby-Eye Shabranigdo, the most powerful force of destruction in this world. It was developed a thousand years ago by Lei Magnus, one of the greatest sorcerers ever to live. I had only cast it once before. My parents grounded me for a month even though they were never able to prove that I was responsible for the crater. 

I lured the dragon out of town by jumping or teleporting from rubble pile to ruin in front of it. I stung it with medium strength offensive spells in between jumps to make sure that it wouldn't ignore me. By the time we reached the edge of the town it was so mad that I thought it might save me the trouble of blowing it up by exploding from pure rage. 

Let me tell you, it's not easy dodging claws and flame breath and casting spells all at once! The dragon almost got me when a piece of charred timber crumbled under my feet. Then, a few seconds later, I teleported straight into the path of its flame, but luckily the dragon ran out of breath just then. No one but a highly trained hero like me could have survived for long against such a monster. Except for those few incidents, I had the situation completely under control. 

The only problem was that I'd need a bit more time for concentration in order to cast my big spell. I took a risk. I teleported back to the edge of town and hoped that the dragon wouldn't think to look behind it. 

"Darkness beyond twilight," I chanted, "Crimson beyond blood that flows, buried in the stream of time..." 

The dragon spotted me. It came running straight towards me, jaws gaping wide. 

"...I pledge myself to darkness." Magical winds whipped through my hair. "Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed by the power you and I possess..." 

I could see the flame forming in the dragon's mouth. I could almost feel its claws piercing my tender, little body. 

"DRAGON SLAVE!!!" 

My spell hit its flame. For a breathless moment, the two forces held each other at bay. Then my spell consumed the flames. The blood-colored beam of light shot forward until it hit the ground right under the dragon. It became a quickly-expanding dome of destruction that was nearly as big as the town by the time I blacked out. 

* * *

I woke up to a pair of gorgeous, jade green eyes and a friendly smile. Both belonged to the most beautiful man I had ever seen. Of course that's not saying too much considering that I come from a small town full of plain people, but this guy was amazing. Let's put it this way. I had never imagined that anyone, male or female, could be that beautiful. Besides those eyes, he had flawless white skin (currently somewhat suntanned, but pale underneath), a long, straight, perfect nose, a firm, shapely, perfect jaw, and lush blonde curls. He looked only a few years older than me, old enough to be considered an adult but young enough to still be smug about it. 

"Are you a ryuzoku?" I asked. My voice sounded harsh in my ears. 

He laughed in surprize. "Me? No, I'm just an ordinary priest." His laughter made his nose wrinkle and eyes scrunch up just as if he was not a divine beauty. 

Oh, maybe I should explain about ryuzoku. They are powerful beings who devote their lives to preserving life. They serve Flare-Dragon Cephied, the eternal nemesis of Ruby-Eye Shabranigdo. Shabranigdo's minions, by the way, are called mazoku. The main type of ryuzoku living today are golden dragons (which are completely different from black dragons like the one I fought). 

"Are you okay now?" the beautiful man was asking. 

I realized that I had been staring at him all this time. I quickly looked away, blushing. "What do you mean?" I asked. 

"You were pretty badly hurt. I healed you." 

I looked around. I was lying on the ground at the edge of a huge, smoking crater. To my embarrassment, my clothes were badly ripped and scorched and I was covered with dirt. 

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. I sat up. 

My healer was indeed wearing priest robes, or rather a priestly tunic and pants. Both were grey. The only ornamentation on them was a thick purple ribbon that stretched from his collar to below his belt with round green stones at the top and bottom. I'm no expert on priestly uniforms, but his looked pretty low rank. 

"Does it hurt anywhere?" he asked anxiously. 

I stretched experimentally. "No." I got to my feet. 

He scrambled up too and tried to steady me. "Careful, little girl. You could still be dizzy from blood loss." 

"Little girl!" I repeated indignantly, brushing his handsome hands off me. "I'm the great sorceress Lana Inwards! I am not a little girl." 

"How old are you then?" 

"Sixteen!" 

"Wow, you sure don't look it." 

"I'm a bit small for my age." 

"I'll say!" 

"Okay," I admitted, "I'm really only fourteen." Well, probably. "I'm still a great sorceress." 

"Fourteen? You're sure this time?" 

"Yes, of course I'm sure!" 

"You're still small for your age. I would have guessed that you were about twelve years old." 

I growled. This guy might be handsome and kind, but he sure was _rude_. 

"Um, that was a tactless thing to say, wasn't it? Sorry. You're a very cute kid, if that helps." 

I wasn't sure whether to smile and blush or hit him, so I did both. 

He sat up rubbing his jaw, "Hey, what was that for?" 

"The next time you meet a sorceress, be more polite." 

He opened his mouth to say something else but changed his mind and shut it again. He watched me with a wry smile and a thoughtful look in his disconcertingly warm, green eyes. I stared back. He would be a nice guy if he kept his mouth shut. 

Maybe I had overreacted. I'm a little bit sensitive about my looks. I am, as he so accurately pointed out, small for my age. My mother calls me a late bloomer. I'm sure I'll reach my growth spurt soon, but in the meantime I look like a twelve-year-old boy. The rest of my looks don't help my confidence either. I'm not ugly or anything but I'm not exactly beautiful either. "Cute" is a pretty good description. I have orange hair, which I sometimes love and sometimes hate. It makes it impossible for me to blend in with the crowd, if I wanted to do that, which I don't. Then there are my eyes. Everyone comments on my eyes. 

"Wow, you have really unusual eyes," Mr. Tactless commented. He braced himself in case I decided to hit him again. 

Instead, I just sighed. "Yeah, I know. Your eyes are an unusual color too. You should be used to it." 

"It's not that they're purple. I know someone else with purple eyes. It's that you have cat pupils." 

I considered hitting him again, but what he said was only the truth. It would be unfair to expect him not to comment on something like that. 

"Do the rest of your family have eyes like yours?" he asked. 

"I don't know. I'm adopted. Can we drop the subject of my looks?" 

"Adopted? Oh. Sorry. I...didn't mean to offend you. Um..." He searched for a safer topic. "I'm really impressed that you killed a dragon by yourself. There aren't many people who could do that." 

I grinned. "Yup. I told you that I'm great." 

"You should be more careful though. There might not be anyone around to heal you the next time." 

I scowled. "Um. Yeah, thanks for the healing. You do that a lot?" 

He swelled with pride. "Yes. I'm a traveling healer." 

"Is that a custom at your temple?" I asked, "Like journeyman status for craftsmen?" 

"No, no! It's just something I want to do." 

"That's really noble of you," I said, genuinely impressed. 

He shrugged. "I've always wanted to see the world." 

"Me too!" 

We smiled at each other. In that moment, I knew that I could like this guy. No one else had ever understood why I wanted to travel just for the sake of traveling. He might have a big mouth, but he was really a nice guy. And he sure was easy on the eyes. 

"You already know my name, but you haven't told me yours," I prompted. 

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Sorry. It's Eruk. Eruk Nels Traurig." 

"Pleased to meet you, Eruk," I said. 

* * *

The townspeople were very grateful. They invited Eruk and me to the big feast they held in a field outside of town. Yeah, Eruk too. Apparently, I wasn't the only person he had healed that afternoon. They kept showering us with praise and encouraging us to eat as much as we wanted. I didn't need a second invitation! It was my first chance in a week to really fill my stomach. Eruk seemed pretty hungry too but, as my mother always says, all teenage boys are bottomless pits. 

Unfortunately, the townspeople's thanks didn't take the form of much money. They only gave me five gold pieces, which might be enough to last me another two weeks if I was really careful. It didn't seem like nearly enough for killing a dragon, but I decided not to protest. They did have a whole town to rebuild after all. They only gave Eruk one gold piece and, from what they said, he had saved several people from dying and several more from being crippled for life. 

Somebody ruffled my hair. I looked up from the chicken drumstick I was chewing on. It was Eruk. He smiled his devastating, blonde smile at me and said, "Goodbye, Lana. It was nice meeting you." 

"You're leaving?" I asked. I felt disappointed even though surely I hadn't expected him to stay. 

"Yeah. I'm finished eating so it's time I got on the road again." 

"Which way are you going?" 

"Southeast." 

"Me too! Maybe I'll run into you again!" 

"I'd like that." He seemed to really mean it. Well, a tactless guy like him wouldn't say that just to be polite. 

I grinned at him over the chicken leg. He ruffled my hair again and left. The feast seemed somehow less fun with him gone, but any party that includes unlimited food is a good one in my book. 


	2. Bandits are brutes

I reached the point where I couldn't eat another bite around mid afternoon. I received a final round of thanks from the grateful villagers and started on my way down the southeast road again. Yes, that really was the direction I had been going. The fact that it was the road Eruk had taken had absolutely nothing to do with my choice. 

Nevertheless, I managed to catch up with Eruk not more than an hour later. I heard him before I saw him. 

"I'm sorry but that's all I have," he was saying. "I'm just a poor wandering healer." 

"Well, it's not good enough," a much less attractive male voice snarled. 

At this point, I finished climbing the wall that had been blocking my view. Eruk was standing in the center of a circle of the ugliest brutes I had ever seen. They were dirty and scarred. One of them even had an eye patch. Eruk stood out in that group like a gold coin dropped in gravel. 

"You'd better find some more if you don't want to get hurt," the most over-muscled of the brutes was saying. 

"I told you, that's all the money I have," Eruk protested. "If any of the members of your band are injured I could heal them." He sounded scared but in control. 

"Eruk!" I shrieked, leaping off the wall and smacking him over the head with my fist. 

"Ouch!" he protested. 

"Eruk, you _idiot_, have you no pride at all? When a bandit says, 'hand over your money,' you don't hand it over! You fireball him! Go on. Fireball them!" 

"I can't do that!" He sounded more scared of me than of the bandits. Sheesh! 

"Of course you can. You just point your finger like this," I demonstrated, "and say 'Fireball!'" 

The highwayman I was pointing at went up in a pillar of flame. His buddies, who had just been standing around with their mouths hanging open until now, seemed to wake up. They attacked us. Technically, it was the first time I had ever been in a real fight but it really wasn't much different from beating up bullies back home. They were just larger and better armed. I could have handled it no problem Ð there were only five of them after all Ð if it wasn't for Eruk. The dope just stood there looking helpless. I ended up having to protect him as well as myself. 

"Eruk, you useless pile of logs, why aren't you fighting?" I screamed. 

"I don't know how!" he answered, his voice shrill with panic. 

"You can cast flare arrow, right?" 

"Uh, yeah. I think so." 

"Then do it!" 

All the time I was screaming at him, I was beating back the bandits with my staff. I'm a master of sorcery but a staff works better for hand-to-hand combat. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eruk pull back a hand as if drawing a bow. "Flare Arrow!" he shouted. I turned to look. Instead of the fiery bolts of death I expected, all I saw was a single, tiny bar of orange light moving at about the speed of a gently thrown ball. "You call _that_ a flare arrow? It looks more like a carrot! It doesn't even look as dangerous as a carrot! It..." 

One of the highwaymen took advantage of the distraction to stab me in the side. Okay, I know I shouldn't have let myself get distracted like that, but Eruk's 'flare arrow' was the most pathetic attack spell I had ever seen. _Anyone_ would have stopped to stare. 

I looked into the ugly, grinning face of the man who had just stabbed me and lost my temper. "Digger Volt," I whispered. Lightning crackled down the length of his dagger and over his body. He was still screaming and smoking when his body hit the ground. An icicle lance took out another robber, and the remaining three fell to a fistful of flare arrows. Still blazing with anger, I turned to the only man left standing, Eruk. He backed away from me with his hands up defensively, but he wasn't my target. I took out my remaining rage on a nearby tree. It was a pillar of charcoal by the time I was satisfied. 

"Lana, Lana calm down." Eruk was saying. "You're wounded. Let me heal you. Lana, calm down." 

"I'm calm," I said calmly. 

Before I could even blink he was kneeling beside me, lifting up my arm so that he could look at my wound. I shoved him away. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it." 

"It is not '_nothing_'," he contradicted. "It looks deep, and it might be infected!" 

"It's just a scratch. Let me rest for a few minutes and I'll be fine." I got a better look at him as I sat down on the ground. "Hey, you're bleeding! You should be worrying about yourself, not me." 

His sleeves were dripping with blood and there were spreading red spots on his chest too. 

"You're more seriously wounded than I am," he said stubbornly. 

"Eruk. Heal yourself. Now." 

He sat down tiredly beside me. "Only if you start healing yourself first." 

"We sound like little children. 'You first.' 'No, you.'" I started to laugh but ended up gasping with pain instead. 

Eruk looked concerned. "Why haven't you started healing yourself yet?" 

"I...can't," I admitted. "I don't know any healing spells." 

"_None_? How can a powerful sorceress like you not know any healing spells? Come on, you must know Recovery at least. _Everybody_ knows Recovery, even people who don't know any other spells." 

I shook my head. "I don't know any white magic, okay?" 

"No white magic at all? No shielding? Purification? _Nothing_?" 

"The best defense is a good offense, and I heal quickly. I've never needed white magic. Besides, who are you to talk? From what I saw, you couldn't cast a decent attack spell to save your life. Literally!" 

"I've never been good at offensive magic," he admitted. 

"How can a powerful sorcerer like you not know any offensive spells?" I mimicked his earlier question to me. "_Everybody_ knows flare arrow at least." 

Instead of responding to my taunts, he wrapped his arms around me from behind. It was the last thing I expected him to do. "Hey, what do you think you're doing!" I protested, flailing my arms. 

He caught them and pinned them to my sides. "Hold still. I'm going to heal this gash in your side whether you want me to or not." 

I held still. All that arm waving had painfully reopened the wound. "What about your injuries?" I protested weakly. 

"I already healed them. They were just superficial cuts. Unlike you, I can use shielding spells." His voice, so soft and deep beside my ear, gave me a fluttery feeling in my stomach. 

"I can create black magic barriers. They're almost like shield spells. They're just too much trouble to cast in a fight." 

"Can you think of a better time to use them?" he replied with more than a hint of irony. 

"At least I can use a staff," I retorted, trying to ignore the strange sensation of being held in someone's arms. "Can't you defend yourself at all?" 

"I'm pretty good at talking my way out of dangerous situations. I've been travelling on my own for almost three weeks now and I'm still fine." 

Three weeks. Great. He left home only days before I did. 

I made a decision in that moment. I would have leapt to my feet to proclaim it but I didn't really want to leave my current, comfortable position. Besides, my teacher always told me to think carefully about the consequences before making important decisions. I considered carefully for a full ten seconds or so. 

"Eruk, I've made a decision," I announced. "From now on I will travel with you and be your protector." 

"You will _what?_" 

"Don't you think protecting a healer is a noble job?" 

"Um...I guess that's okay. I would hate for you to go off and get killed because you can't shield or heal yourself." 

I scowled. "It's you who needs protecting." 

He nodded thoughtfully, his hair brushing against my face. "We might even make a good team. We do seem to complement each other's weaknesses." 

He released me and stood up. "Okay, you're all better." 

I looked down. My skin looked like it had never been broken. He was good! 

I stumbled to my feet, feeling slightly dizzy. Eruk put a hand on my shoulder to steady me. "Let's go, 'Protector,'" he smiled, his green eyes affectionate. 


	3. Came back for more, did you?

The bandits caught up with us again just before sunset. This time there were around fifteen of them. 

"That's them!" One of the ones from before pointed at us accusingly. 

"I told you it was a bad idea to heal them," I muttered to Eruk. 

The goons quickly surrounded us. One wearing a gold chain sneered in my face. "You may think you're tough, little girl, but let's see you deal with the entire band." 

"Fifteen against one, hardly fair odds," I commented. 

"Hey, I'm here too!" Eruk protested. 

"Yeah, but you're useless in a fight. Don't worry, I'll protect you." 

"You can't even protect yourself," a bandit snickered. 

I cracked my knuckles with a confident smirk. "Just watch me." I wasn't quite as confident as I pretended, but I thought I could take them if weren't any tougher than before. 

A bandit drew his sword. "Enough talking!" 

"Source of power..." I began one of my favorite spells. 

"Wait!" An old man shoved his way to the front of the bandit group and spread his arms wide to hold his companions back. He had thin grey hair, a potbelly and an eyepatch. I couldn't figure out why the bandits would let such an old geezer in their band. 

"Wait!" he shouted again. "Don't attack her! It's Lina Inverse!" 

"That's _Lana Inwards_," I corrected him. 

"Who?" one of the thicker bandits inquired. 

"Lina Inverse. The Banditkiller, the Dragonspooker, the Enemy of All Who Live. The scariest little girl ever to walk the roads." 

"You're that famous?" Eruk whispered to me. 

"I...don't think so. I have no idea what they're talking about," I whispered back. "Hey," I shouted at the men surrounding us. "Don't you mean 'Dragonkiller' and 'Banditspooker'? I haven't killed any bandits...yet." I gave them a fanged grin. 

"What makes you think this girl is Lina Inverse?" a tall bandit with an earring scoffed. 

"Look at her!" The old man waved his arms. "Orange hair, flat chest, quick tongue, travels with a tall, blond swordsman. I'd recognize her anywhere!" 

"Um, I'm a priest. I've never used a sword in my life," Eruk pointed out diffidently. 

I started gathering power in one hand. "You got a problem with my looks?" 

"Lina Inverse is dead," earring man said impatiently. "No one's seen her in more than thirty years. Even if she just retired or something, she wouldn't still look like a twelve-year-old." 

"I'm fourteen! Not twelve. _Fourteen_!" 

"She's a sorceress. She can look any age she wants. Haven't you heard the rumors that she's really a thousand years old and fought in the War of Monster's Fall?" 

I had had enough. I tossed a fireball into the middle of the band of thieves to get their attention. Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed that several of the bandits were carrying pistols. The fireball spell produces a ball of flame that explodes on contact with the ground or anything else in its path. A fireball spell combined with several gunpowder pouches produced a somewhat larger explosion than I had planned on. To my surprise, the blast knocked over all the bandits on three sides of the circle surrounding us but the flames never touched me. I looked over at Eruk, who grinned back at me and kept his powerful magical shield up until the last flickers of fire had died away. 

I glared at all the bandits still conscious. "Listen up! My name is Lana Inwards, sorceress supreme and mistress of magic. I don't know who this 'Lina Inverse' you keep talking about is, but from now on you can forget about her because I'm going to be twice the sorceress she ever was!" 

The remaining bandits picked themselves off the ground and attacked us. I knocked the first wave back with Bomb di Wind, a powerful wind spell. That gave me enough time to draw my staff from where I keep it fastened across my back. I dropped into fighting position. Then, on second thought, I pressed it into Eruk's hands. "Try not to be completely helpless, okay?" I said. 

He nodded determinedly and moved so were back to back. I listened to him flailing at our attackers with no technique whatsoever and shook my head in disgust. My staff deserved better treatment, but I didn't have time to worry about that now. Some of the bandits were back on their feet. 

I took two out with ice spells before they could reach me, but the third sliced my arm. Fortunately, I moved my arm away fast so it was only a shallow cut. I kicked him in the knee hard enough to hear bone crunch. He collapsed, clutching his leg and moaning like a baby. I kicked him out of my way and turned my attention to my next attacker. 

This guy had a curved knife in each hand. I knocked one aside with the flat of my left hand, wincing as it bit into my palm. My right fist hit him right under the jaw, momentarily stunning him. Before he could recover, I followed up the punch with a lightning bolt. 

That took care of my attackers. I spun to face Eruk's. "Cowards!" I screamed. "Real men wouldn't pick on a defenseless priest!" 

"I'm doing okay," Eruk panted. He had managed to keep most of the bandits at bay by swinging my staff wildly and unpredictably. It only worked as a delaying tactic, but in this case that was the right kind of strategy to use. 

"Flare arrow!" I shouted. I used the lances of fire the spell produced to pick off four of his attackers and took out two more by dropping an ice boulder on their heads. That left one. He turned to run but I grabbed my staff out of Eruk's hands, swept the last bandit's feet out from under him, and hit him in a few vulnerable places to make sure he stayed down. 

I turned around slowly to survey the wreckage. Charred bandits, frozen bandits, moaning bandits. From now on, these men would fear Lana Inwards above all other cocky redheads! I could taste their fear and shame hanging in the air, and it was sweet. 

I whooped with joy. "Victory!" 

Eruk grabbed my hand. "Lana, you're bleeding!" 

Not this again. I pulled my hand out of his grasp. "I'm fine. Look." I tore a piece off the rag that had once, just yesterday, been my favorite shirt. I spat on it and used it to wipe the blood off my wounds. "See, they've already closed." 

As he watched, the cut on my arm faded to a thin, pink line and then vanished entirely. The cut on my hand was more serious but I could tell it would be gone in a few minutes. 

Eruk was wearing the most stupid-looking, slack-jawed expression I had ever seen on his face. "I told you. I heal fast," I said impatiently. 

"Lana, no one heals _that_ fast." 

"I do." 

"Are you sure you're human?" 

"Of course I'm human! What are you implying?" I knew he didn't mean any harm, but his teasing brought back nasty memories of the boys back home who always called me 'monster'. Even beating them up daily hadn't made them stop, and it had gotten me grounded for two weeks. My parents were so unfair! 

Eruk looked thoughtfully from my blazing eyes to the wounded bandits at our feet. "Never mind. Let's heal these guys and get moving again." 

"Eruk, you do not heal bandits! If you do, they just come after you again. Haven't you learned that yet?" 

"I'm a healer," he said with dignity. "I can't leave injured people just lying here. Besides, I'm sure they've learned their lesson. Haven't you?" 

The bandits who still could nodded enthusiastically. 

"If I hadn't sworn to be your protector, I would just leave you here to be robbed and killed, you idiot," I said, finding a tree to lean against while I waited. 


	4. Dinner shouldn't be this difficult

When we got to the next town, the first thing we did was head straight for the nearest restaurant. My heart swelled with happiness we stepped in the door. Not only did it smell of hearty stew, but it looked just like the kind of place I had always daydreamed about: swinging sign over the door, smoke-stained roof beams, gruff patrons. Actually, I realized as my eyes adjusted to the lower light inside, most of the customers looked disappointingly similar to the folks back home. They looked like farmers, the most boring kind of people in the world. There was one man at a table in the corner, however, who caught my eye. His hair was blue and his eyes were dangerous. He wore leather and carried a sword. He glared straight at me over his mug. 

Exciting! I had finally met the man of my dreams! Eruk was sweet and all, but this blue-haired stranger was much more like the kind of guy I had expected to meet in my adventures. He was so cool looking! 

I would have gone straight to the swordsman's table, but Eruk dragged me out of the restaurant. 

"Hey! What'd you do that for?" I shouted, struggling in his grip. 

"We can do better than that." 

I looked up at him in surprise. His nose and eyebrows were wrinkled with disgust although I couldn't imagine why. 

"I saw a market a few blocks from here. Let's get some fresh vegetables and meat and I'll make dinner." 

I was doubtful, to say the least. As my mother always said, "A man belongs in a kitchen like a dog belongs in a china cupboard." Why should I subject myself to Eruk's attempts at cooking when there was a perfectly good restaurant available? My curiosity won out over my hunger. Let the boy cook if he wants to; we can always go back to the restaurant later. 

"Sure, go ahead," I said. "I've never seen a man try to cook before. It should be amusing." 

"I don't hear you volunteering to cook." 

I am, shall we say, somewhat lacking in culinary talent. My mother has been trying to teach me since I was practically a baby but my cooking still comes out uninspired and somewhat burned, or else very inspired and practically inedible. ("Chili powder? What chili powder?" "I thought the fire spell would make it cook faster." "What do you mean there's no such thing as lamb chaos?") However, he didn't need to know that. 

"Why should I go to the trouble of cooking when I can go to a restaurant? Or get you to do it for me?" 

He just shook his head and walked toward the nearest vegetable cart. 

* * *

"How much further are you planning to drag me? And why can't you carry your own bags?" I whined. 

"I've got two bags. You've only got one," Eruk pointed out. 

I switched the bag to my other hand and opened my mouth to start complaining again. Before I could, Eruk nodded toward a grove a trees just up the road. "That looks like a good place." 

I lagged along behind him, trying to shake life back into my overburdened arms. 

Eruk gratefully dropped his bags beside a stump and I followed suit. 

"Get me some water," the golden haired autocrat ordered me, holding out our newly-acquired pot. "I'm going to chop vegetables." 

"Fine, fine," I agreed, taking the pot. 

It didn't take me too long to find water. There was a stream across the field from where we were camped. Its path was marked by bushes that had taken advantage of the water source to grow taller than the surrounding, half-grown barley. I filled the pot and started lugging it back toward Eruk's grove. I had never realized before just how _heavy_ water is! I had to stop and rest after only twenty steps. Stupid Eruk, making me do all the heavy lifting and carrying. 

Wait! Maybe I was the stupid one. 

"I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner," I muttered, "Levitation!" 

After that, carrying the water was much easier. 

"Thanks, Lana," Eruk said when I dropped the pot beside him. His smile almost made all the effort worthwhile. Almost. 

"After making me carry all these heavy things, dinner had better be good," I warned him. 

He grimaced half-reassuringly, half-worriedly. "I hope so. Would you like to help me cut things up?" 

"You're the one who volunteered to make dinner. Do it yourself. _I'm_ going to wash the charcoal out of my clothes." 

"What clothes?" he snickered, "All I see is charred leather vest and a few ragged strips of fabric." 

"Very funny, Eruk," I said sarcastically. 

"If those trousers legs had burned any higher, your hips would be showing!" 

I sent a relatively small, cool fireball at his head. "There. Let's see how you like it!" 

He was still screaming and waving his arms in the air when I left the grove. Wimp. 

* * *

I was lured back an hour or so later by absolutely delicious smells. 

"Mmmm," I sighed in delight. "Hey, Eruk, is the soup ready yet?" 

"Not yet. It needs about another half-hour. Besides, I'm not sure I should give you any food after you _threw a fireball at my head_." 

"But I carried groceries and got you water! And it wasn't a very big fireball. It didn't even scorch one curl on your head." I couldn't bear to damage those beautiful curls or I would have made it a lot hotter. 

"That's no excuse. I thought you were supposed to be protecting me, not beating me up!" 

"Well, you deserved it. You were leering at me." 

"I was not!" 

"Were too!" 

"_Was not!_" 

"_Were too!_" 

"Okay, maybe I was." He had the grace to look a little guilty. "But you can't expect a man not to leer a little bit at a half-naked girl, even one without any breasts." 

"I have breasts!" I retorted. They might be only half-grown, but they were there. "I'm a woman and all women have them. Even some men do if they're fat enough." 

Wonderboy seemed to consider that. "I don't," he announced. "I'm as flat as a washboard from here to here." He pointed first to his collar and then to his belt. 

The statement was so ridiculous that I forgot to be mad at him. "No one has a chest that flat. Even children are a little bumpy," I stated flatly. 

Before I even realized what he was doing, he had taken his shirt off! 

"Eruk!" I protested. 

"See?" he said smugly. 

Of course his torso wasn't really as flat as a board. His bones showed faintly through the skin (although not as much as mine did), and he didn't have any square corners or anything. However, it was the flattest body I had ever seen. No muscle. No excess fat. Not even any chest hair. 

I pointed these facts out. He shrugged uncomfortably, finally starting to show signs of embarrassment. "What do you expect? I'm a priest not a swordsman. And I'll probably grow some chest hair eventually. After all, I'm only sixteen." 

"That young?" I asked in surprise. 

The boy actually puffed up with pride. "You thought I was older?" 

So he was just as under-aged for an adventurer as I was. Oh well. With our early start, we would be hardened professionals by the time most people our age got around to leaving their home villages. 

"Put your shirt back on, Eruk," I said wearily. "No one wants to see your washboard chest." 

In the moment when his shirt completely covered his head and his arms were tangled in the sleeves, a grey blur streaked over our stew pot and landed on top of him. I screamed. He shouted in surprise. It was a huge wolf. 

Wasting no time, I grabbed my staff and started prodding the wolf gently in the chest to try to get it off the man I was supposed to be protecting. Eruk writhed, trying to tilt it off. The wolf growled. 

"Lana, what is it?" Eruk shouted. 

"Hold still. It's a wolf," I shouted back. He froze. 

I pushed harder with my staff. The wolf growled warningly again. 

I thought fast. "Eruk, when I tell you to, cast a powerful shield spell." 

He gave a muffled grunt of assent. 

"Diem Wing!" The wind spell sent the wolf flying off Eruk's back. "Now!" I shouted. 

The wolf crashed head first into a tree. Unfortunately, it was only a small tree, this being a rather small grove, so the tree suffered more damage than the wolf did. Before the wolf even hit the ground, I found myself surrounded by the faintly bluish bubble of a shield spell. 

At my feet, Eruk finished pulling his shirt on. "Wow, that's a big wolf," he observed shakily. 

I agreed. I hadn't seen very many wolves before so I wasn't sure what size was typical, but this one was as big as me and Eruk put together! I was pretty sure they weren't supposed to be _that_ big. 

The wolf stumbled back onto its feet, shook its head until its eyes uncrossed, and growled angrily. It launched itself at us but bounced off the shield. Undeterred, it threw its body against the shield again and again, trying to batter it down. 

Eruk stared at the wolf, wide eyed. "My mother always said that wolves were peaceful creatures who would only attack humans if they were starving or to protect their cubs or something else like that," he commented uncertainly. 

"Either she was wrong, or this is not a normal wolf," I replied grimly. 

We watched the wolf beat itself against the shield. 

"Do you think it will give up if we wait long enough?" Eruk asked at length. 

I pulled myself together. "Maybe, but I'm not going to wait that long. For one thing, having that thing crashing around all evening would make me loose my appetite, and that would be a waste of a delicious-smelling dinner. Let's deal with it now." 

He swallowed. "Okay. What do you want me to do?" 

"On second thought, I'll deal with it. You just protect yourself and our dinner." 

"Are you sure?" He didn't sound happy about letting me face the creature alone but at least he knew better than to butt in on a fight where he would only get in the way. 

"Oh yeah," I assured him with more confidence than I really felt. "To a girl who fought a black dragon and won, a wolf is nothing. Let me out of this bubble." 

"Okay, but be careful. It might be rabid or a werewolf or something." He looked at me for a long moment with worry in his tender, green eyes before recasting the shield spell with a much smaller radius. 

A breeze ruffled my suddenly unprotected hair. The wolf, in the process of throwing itself against the shield again, tripped over its own paws when the shield suddenly wasn't where it expected. I took advantage of its momentary helplessness to launch myself onto its back. I wrapped my arms around its furry neck and my legs around its body. "Digger Volt," I whispered into its pointy ear. It writhed in my arms as lightning ripped through its body. Behind me, I heard Eruk groan in sympathy. Whose side was he on anyway? I kept up the spell until the wolf in my arms started to smell strongly of singed fur. 

I cautiously unwrapped myself from the body. The twitches died out. The wolf lay completely still. I prodded it with my boot but it appeared to be genuinely dead. 

Eruk came to look over my shoulder. "That was the scariest thing I've ever seen," he said. 

"Yeah, that wolf was crazy!" I agreed feelingly. 

"So are you! Do you realize that there were sparks shooting out of your hair? And what possessed you to body-tackle a rabid wolf anyway?" 

I scowled. Of all the ungrateful people... "It worked didn't it? Now, help me get this thing out of our way," I commanded him, grabbing the front end of the giant wolf. He obediently grabbed the back end and between us we managed to lug it out to the side of the road. 

"That wolf has nice fur," I commented, as we headed back into the grove. "Do you think I would look good in a fur vest?" 

He gave me a weird look. "You are a very, very strange little girl, aren't you?" 

"I am not!" I protested angrily. "Would you have preferred for me to let the wolf eat us?" 

"It's not that..." 

Our argument was interrupted by the sight of a stranger seated at our campfire. No, not a complete stranger. It was the blue-haired man I had seen in the restaurant. 


	5. Enigmatic visitor

**_Author's Note:_** Heh, heh. Almost four months between updates isn't very good, is it? My deepest apologies to anyone who has been waiting impatiently for this story to be updated. (Hey, you never know. There might be one or two people.) For some reason, chapter 5 was difficult to write. I'm still not completely happy with it, but it does what it's supposed to. Fortunately, it turned out that chapter 6 practically wrote itself while I was trying to revise chapter 5 so you get two chapters at once. I hope you like 'em. 

* * *

"Oh, hi!" I said breathlessly. "You were in the restaurant back in town about an hour ago, weren't you? I saw you there." 

The blue-haired man just glared at me. A shiver ran up my spine. He really seemed like just the sort of cold-hearted, nihilistic type I had always daydreamed about! Up close, his eyes were golden and feral, not unlike the eyes of the wolf I had just killed. 

Eruk seemed less impressed. He said with grudging politeness, "This is our campsite. My mother always taught me to be polite to guests, even uninvited ones, so you're free to join us, but I can't help wondering where you were a minute ago when we were being attacked by a giant wolf." 

"I had to test you," the blue-haired man said in a low, gravelly voice. Even his voice was perfect for his image! 

"_You_ sent that wolf?" Eruk and I exclaimed in unison. "How?" Eruk demanded. "Why?" I asked, bewildered. 

"I had to know how powerful you are," our visitor said ominously. 

"Wow, that's so cool! It's just like in a story where the person tests the heroes before sending them on a quest, or the villain tests them to see if they're worth fighting, or the wise old master tests someone to see if he's worth training!" 

Eruk was giving me a disgusted look. Our visitor looked faintly startled. 

"Well, it is," I muttered sulkily. I turned hopefully to the stranger. "So, do we pass?" 

"I'm still not sure. You obviously have some power, but so far I've seen nothing that couldn't have come from your mother." He spoke the word 'mother' with a sneer of utter contempt. 

"My...mother?" I repeated faintly. Somehow I was sure he wasn't talking about the plump, sentimental, overprotective woman who raised me. "You know who my mother is?" 

"Of course I do. Did you think we wouldn't find out? That fool who created you didn't even try to hide it. You look more like her than she looks like herself." 

"I look like her?" I repeated, dazed. Right now, this man held the keys to my heart. My fondest dream - the one I longed for even more than I longed for adventure - was to find my real family. I had been a complete misfit all my life, but somewhere out there, there had to have been at least two other people like me. 

"What...what was she like?" I asked with a dry throat. 

"She was...a girl, surprisingly powerful for a human but still not worthy to lick his boots." 

"Whose boots?" I asked blankly. 

"The general's," he answered impatiently. "I don't know what he was thinking when he created you." 

"My...father?" I asked uncertainly. "My father was a general?" 

"My master's general and most trusted servant. I don't know why she places such faith in someone so obviously unreliable." 

I stared with unfocused eyes into the fire, imagining a mother with my orange hair and violet eyes and a father who commanded armies. 

"Who are you?" Eruk asked in a hostile tone I had never heard him use before. I snapped back into focus out of surprise. "What do you want from us?" Eruk continued. "You'd better not just be playing with Lana's innocent heart!" 

I loved him! None of the boys back home ever used phrases like "Lana's innocent heart". None of _them_ would ever act so protective of me. 

"I have no interest in you," the blue-haired man said disdainfully, "only in the mongrel." 

"Mongrel!" I protested angrily. "Who are you calling a mongrel?" He gave me a heavy-lidded, golden gaze of pure malice. 

The soup chose that moment to boil over. "Oh no, my soup!" Eruk cried, rushing over to prod it tenderly. He somehow managed to turn it from a bubbling, seething mess back into a delicious-smelling, well-behaved pot of stew simply by stirring it a few times. That sounds simple enough but have you ever tried doing it? I have. Trust me, Eruk had to be a _master_ of soups to make it look so easy. 

Eruk ladled soup into two bowls. "Would you like some?" he asked our uninvited guest reluctantly. The man looked bemused but after several seconds of thought he nodded. Eruk dished up another bowl of soup. "You still haven't told us who you are," he pointed out as he handed over the bowl. 

"You can call me...Lupin," the blue-haired man said. 

Eruk burst into loud sniggers. "Like the flower?" he gasped. 

Lupin stared at him blankly. 

"I'm Lana Inwards, but you probably knew that already," I told him. "And this is Eruk. He's a healer." I took my first bite of soup. "And a really, really, really good cook!" I added. "Eruk, this is absolutely delicious! I take back everything I said about men not being able to cook!" 

"Thanks," he said, blushing with pleasure. 

Lupin lifted a spoonful of soup from his bowl and stared at it as if he had never seen vegetable soup before. Without changing expression, he moved it to his mouth, chewed slowly and swallowed. 

"Isn't it good?" I prompted him. 

"It is...soup," he said blankly. He looked down at his spoon and bowl again for a long moment before putting both down and getting up to leave. 

"Wait!" I cried. "Look, you obviously don't like us but we're trying to be nice. Don't go yet. You're the only person I've ever met who knows anything about my real parents! Please tell me more about them before you go. Please?" I hate begging for anything but this meant that much to me. 

"You...do not know who your parents are?" Lupin asked in disbelief. 

I explained quickly, "My parents - my adoptive parents - found me on their doorstep when I was a baby. There was no one else around. Just me in one basket and a bunch of blankets, bottles and really _weird_ toys in another basket and a note in a language that no one could read. I've been studying mage lore since I was a kid and I _still_ don't know what language it's in. As if that's not weird enough, my hometown is this tiny village in the middle of nowhere. I have no idea why my real parents picked that town of all places to leave me. It's all just really, really weird. I hope you can explain it because I sure can't." 

"Wow," Eruk said, wide eyed. "You just get stranger and stranger, don't you? That's the weirdest story I ever heard. Is it really true?" 

"Yes, it's true!" I retorted angrily. 

"Is it possible that she does not know her true nature?" Lupin asked the air gleefully, showing off his abnormally sharp-looking teeth in a feral grin. He laughed gratingly. "Incredible. What was he thinking?" 

I was rather annoyed that he was talking to the air about me when I was right there asking questions, but I tried not to show it. I scratched in the dirt quickly with the handle of my spoon. 

"This is the message from the note that was left with me." I had spent so many hours trying to puzzle out the symbols that I had memorized all the strokes even though I had no idea what they represented. "Can you read it?" 

Both Eruk and Lupin looked down at the symbols. 

"No," Eruk said blankly, "but it looks really old. Like, before the Mazoku War old." 

Lupin sneered. "Sentimental garbage. I told them he was losing his mind. Well, little abomination, it looks like you may not be nearly as dangerous as I feared. I wish you all the joys of a mortal life and I hope we never meet again." He strode off into the trees before I could stop him. I lost sight of him as he passed behind the first tree, which I really shouldn't have since it was a sapling. In fact, the whole grove was so thin that I could still see the carcass of the wolf just outside it. But then, I had long since guessed that Lupin was not an ordinary man. 

"Well, that was strange," Eruk said, sounding like he was trying not to sound completely spooked. 

"Yeah," I agreed in much the same tone of voice. Then I screamed in frustration, "Oooh! The first guy I've ever met who claims to know something about my real parents and he wouldn't tell me _anything_!" 

"He told you a few things," Eruk pointed out reasonably. 

"But those things just raise more questions!" I protested. 

"Don't get too worked up, Lana," Eruk said consolingly. "He was probably just crazy. He probably doesn't really know anything about you or your parents. He just fit you into one of his delusions." 

I hadn't thought of that. "Maybe you're right," I admitted, "but now I'm all upset! I don't know what to do." 

"Have some more soup," Eruk suggested, handing me the ladle. 

I grinned and plunged the ladle into the pot. "I feel better already." 


	6. Face from the past

Eruk and I were walking down the road the next day when a man walked out of the corn field we were passing and waved to us. He had shoulder length purple hair and held a staff tipped with a red, spherical crystal in his right hand. 

"Teacher!" I cried. "What are you doing here? I haven't seen you in ages!" 

"You know how it is," he called back cheerfully. "Busy, busy, busy! I looked for you at home but you had already left. Do you know that your parents are worried sick?" He didn't sound particularly concerned. 

"They knew I was planning to leave." 

"Yes, but they expected you would at least wait for your birthday." 

"I know. That's why I left early." 

"When's your birthday?" Eruk asked suspiciously. 

"It's today." 

"Oh, happy birthday! So are you fourteen or fifteen?" 

"Fourteen." 

"But you told me three days ago that you were fourteen!" 

"I was! This is the anniversary of the day my parents found me. I don't know my real birthday." I sighed. 

"Yes, happy birthday, Lana," my teacher said. "I'm going to give you clothes as your birthday present since you seem to have lost your old ones." 

I wrapped my arms around myself protectively. What was it with men and making rude comments about my outfit? 

"I thought I'd told you that you would need protective spells woven into your clothing if you wanted to become an adventurer," my teacher said, holding out a small stack of neatly folded clothing. 

"Give me, give me, give me!" I shouted, snatching my present from his hands. "I'll go try it on. You talk amongst yourselves," I added haughtily. "Teacher, this is my new friend Eruk Nels Traurig. Eruk, this is my teacher. He taught me all the magic I know." I dashed far enough into the cornfield that they wouldn't be able to see me. 

Behind me, I heard Eruk say, "So, do you have a name, Lana's Teacher?" 

"Mmm. You can call me...Mr. X. Yes, I like that," my teacher replied. From his tone of voice, I could tell that he was smiling his most irritatingly, ineffably cheerful smile. "So, Eruk -- It was Eruk, right? -- where are you from?" 

"Sairaag," Eruk said shortly. 

"A lovely city. Is the tree still alive?" 

"Flagoon, you mean?" Eruk sounded wary. "Yes." 

Flagoon is the holy tree of Sairaag. It is said to absorb evil energy and convert it into pure, clean energy. In other words, it eats black magic and gives off white magic. It was killed when the city was destroyed thirty years ago (or around then) but they replaced it when they rebuilt the city. It's considered one of the holiest objects in the world. 

"How did they manage to revive it?" my teacher asked. "I've been wondering about that for a long time." 

"Cuttings. There were trees grown from cuttings taken from Flagoon in some of the other towns in the area. We took cuttings from those trees and planted them back in Sairaag." 

"How clever." 

There was no sign of sarcasm in my teacher's tone, but Eruk bristled anyway. "Yes. It was." 

At that point, I finished getting dressed. I ran back out to the road. "How do I look?" I called. 

"Very cute," my teacher said approvingly. 

Eruk nodded. "You look decent for the first time since I met you." 

"_Eruk_," I growled warningly. 

My teacher forestalled the fight by saying, "Eruk, if you're from Sairaag, perhaps you know a young woman named...Slyphiel, I believe." 

"That's my mother's name," Eruk said stiffly. 

"Really?" my teacher asked with interest. He leaned forward and peered into Eruk's face. "Yes, I can see the resemblance. What an amazing coincidence." 

"Your eyes are just like Lana's," Eruk commented uneasily. 

Perhaps I should take a moment to describe my teacher's eyes. He keeps them closed most of the time. I've asked him why about two hundred times. Half the time, he just told me that it was a secret and the rest of the time he gave me a hundred different answers, most of them obviously false. So, basically, I don't know why. Anyway, it doesn't seem to have any effect on his ability to see where he's going or where the things around him are. When he does open his eyes, which he does sometimes if he's startled or if he wants to look at something more closely, they're angular and exactly the color of amethyst. I know because my mother has a pair of amethyst earrings and they're exactly the same color as his eyes. My eyes are a few shades darker but they have the same oblong pupils. Maybe it's a black mage thing. 

"I met your mother once, briefly," my teacher was saying to Eruk. "She seemed very pure and good." Somehow he managed to make that sound not entirely complementary. "She was a very powerful healer." 

"She still is," Eruk said softly. The tenderness in his voice made me want to cry with envy. 

"Teacher," I said, "do you know anything about my real parents?" 

He seemed to freeze momentarily at the question but his voice was unconcerned when he asked, "What makes you think I would know anything about your real parents?" 

"I don't know. You know a lot of stuff so I thought you might." 

"Lana, if I knew anything about your real parents, don't you think I would have told you years ago?" 

I scuffed a toe on the ground. "I guess so." 

"They must have been amazing people to produce someone like Lana," Eruk said. I did not take that as a complement. 

I was about to challenge Eruk over that, when a...creature burst out of the corn beside us. It was followed by several more. 

"My, my, I didn't think there _were_ any orcs in this area," my teacher commented in a tone of amusement. "I'll let you two handle them." 

"Why you...!" I shouted but by the time I looked back to grab him, he was gone. "That slippery, no good coward," I muttered under my breath. "He _always_ does this." Usually there was nothing worse to face than my parents coming out to see what caused the explosion but my teacher still always reliably vanished at the first sign of trouble. What was worse, he always teleported so far away that I couldn't read his jump to follow him. 

That left Eruk and me to face the orcs. Or rather, since Eruk was useless, that left me. I swallowed hard, but my teacher had trained me well, even if he was too much of a coward to fight himself. 

"Freeze arrow!" I shouted. The lead orc froze in its tracks, literally. Good. They might be ugly but they were still just as stoppable as other flesh-and-blood creatures. "Fireball!" I tried. That knocked the next pair out of the fight, but the rest kept on coming. They were already almost on top of me! 

I drew my staff. The orcs lumbered closer, drool running down the sides of their pig-like snouts. I backed up until I bumped into Eruk. "Eruk..." I said. I grabbed his hand. He gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. "...Run!" I shouted. 

Shoving an orc out of my way with the end of my staff, I ran past the orcs at top speed, dragging Eruk behind me. Once we were a safe distance behind the orcs, I dropped Eruk's hand and spun back into the fight. The orcs, being incredibly stupid, were still trying to figure out what had just happened. I took out another two of them before they figured out that I was behind them. A fistful of flare arrows took out a third while they were running towards me but the last two had almost reached me again. 

I fixed an expression of terrified indecision on my face and waited for the orcs to come into reach. Just when they thought they had me, I lunged forward, shouting, "Mono Volt" Both the spell and I bounced off the inside of a magical shield. 

"Ouch!" I shouted. "Eruk, do you know how much that spell stings when it rebounds on the caster?" 

"Uh, sorry," he said. "Lana, if you're going to try something like that, would you warn me first? That was terrifying!" 

"Oh, sorry," I said, "but there wasn't really time." 

Meanwhile, the orcs were prodding the shield spell in bewilderment. 

I thought quickly. "Okay, he's what we'll do. Drop the shield when I tell you to." 

"That isn't much of a plan," Eruk complained, but I was already chanting, "Source of all power, burning bright, gather in my hand. Now, Eruk! Fireball!" 

The shield went down with perfect timing. Suddenly deprived of the surface they had been banging their fists on, the orcs stumbled towards us only to be annihilated by my fireball. 

I brushed off my hands. "Well done, Lana, if I do say so myself. And I didn't even have to use any of my big spells." 

"Yeah, that _was_ pretty good," Eruk agreed, patting me on the back. I blushed with pleasure. 

We turned around and started up the road again. 

"Have you known that guy long?" Eruk asked. 

"My teacher? Yeah, as long as I can remember." 

"Is he always that, well, strange?" 

"No, sometimes he's much worse." I laughed. "Actually, I'm surprised he showed up while you were around. Usually he doesn't let anyone see him but me." 

"That must be awkward for you." 

"Yeah. Until I was nine years old, my parents thought he was a figment of my imagination. They used to call him my 'imaginary friend.' Even though I told them that he wasn't imaginary and he wasn't my friend." 

"What changed then?" 

"They decided that a purely imaginary friend couldn't teach me real spells or give me real spell books. Then they got really worried." 

"I can imagine. Most parents don't like the thought of their children getting involved with strange men." 

"And my teacher sure is strange! He's a good teacher though. I like him, except when I want to kill him." 

"You don't seem very respectful." 

"The man's a freak, but he's my freak. You know what I find really strange?" 

"What?" 

"That he said he's met your mother. I always think of him as living in woods behind my house. It's odd to think of him having a life outside of teaching me." 

"I always felt that way about my teachers too. There was one..." 

At that moment I heard a snorting sound behind me. I whirled. The orc I had frozen before was right behind us! Time seemed to slow so that I could see the water slowly dripping off its body. I heard my own scream. There was no time to cast a spell but somehow, without knowing what I was doing, I managed to grab a wad of my fear and throw it in the creature's face. The orc crumbled to ash. 

"Lana, what did you just do?" Eruk breathed. 

"I...I don't know," I gasped. "I just threw raw black magic at it. I wasn't thinking. I just did it. I can't believe it worked!" 

"Shh," Eruk gathered me into his arms. I clung to him. The orc had scared me, but not half as much as my own response had. If anything, my non-spell had been more powerful than the formal spells of the same magic level, and it shouldn't be. Where had I gotten the power from? 

White magic, black magic and shamanism all draw on external sources of power. White magic draws on the gods, black magic on the Monsters, the mazoku, and shamanism on the elemental forces of nature. A mage shouldn't be able to draw enough power from her internal energy to disintegrate an orc. Unless maybe she used up her own life force. 

"Eruk," I asked desperately. "Is my hair white?" 

The most obvious sign of overextending your magical abilities to the point where you drain your life energy is that your hair turns white. The second most obvious sign is that if you drain it deep enough, you drop dead. 

"No, it's still bright orange," he reassured me. "Do you feel weak?" 

"No, I feel great." The fight had exhilarated rather than exhausted me. 

"Then, don't worry about it," he decided. "You're fine. I'm fine. All the orcs are dead. We should just be happy that everything turned out all right." 

"You're right," I agreed. "I won't worry about it. Everything's good." 

We stood in silence for a long moment. 

"Uh, Lana, you can let go now," Eruk suggested awkwardly. 

I reluctantly unwrapped my arms from my beautiful protectee. Shucks. It's not everyday you get a hug from a gorgeous blonde like that. 

* * *

**_Author's Note:_** First, I would like to thank Ysengrinn for pointing out the problem with Eruk's last name. It has been fixed. 

Since I'm at it, I would also like to thank RurouniGochan for giving such wonderful reviews. I love your stories too. I recommend them to anyone who likes Rurouni Kenshin. In fact, I would like to thank everyone who has reviewed this story. You are all kind and insightful. Your guesses are always good even when they're wrong. 

Now you know most of Lana and Eruk's parentage, the fun will be watching them figure it out. For that matter, you still don't know most of the why or how. As always, the review button is available for guesses and any other comments you would like to make. 


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